Nice Things Said

Back Cover Blurb

What object of cosmic significance was rescued from the flaming ruins of Constantinople by a lone knight? Why was it ripped from its matrix and scattered across the continent as the Western World began its renaissance? Was this one-of-a-kind stone the hidden prize when the fortress island of Rhodes fell to the conquering army of Suleiman the Magnificent? How did this singular gem, compressed in the deepest folds of the earth, make its way to the digital surface of a new millennium?

The one thing we can be sure of is that it's here and being tracked with all the resources of our age. The stone will never be lost again because it is less an object of wealth or beauty than the secret of secrets. Samson Mondieu, the designated hunter, understands that. But who is he really? And who among the latest Masters of the Universe will finally claim The Byzantium Stone?

Samson is the designated seeker for the man of fantastic wealth who launched the idea of search engines. Samson flies to Italy determined to find the truth about an under-the-table art deal that clouds the origins of The Byzantium Stone. Huge sums of money are involved, but what he finds instead is that the secret is guarded by a beautiful woman who may have the biggest truth wrapped in a small coded notebook.

What incredible things does this book say? And how far along the road to discovery will it lead Samson as he closes in on the legendary gemstone that everyone just has to have?

David Chacko is the author of twenty-two critically acclaimed novels in the mystery and espionage genres. He is also the co-author of one of the groundbreaking texts in the field: Crime and Punishment: An Introduction to Detective Fiction.

Chacko's books have been called "brilliant and scaring" (Kirkus), and "raw-boned and brutal" (The Detroit News). He is known as "a novelist of talent and power" (Playboy), "a writer of power and intensity" (Publisher's Weekly), and his work as "compelling and unexpected" (Newsweek), "a powerhouse charged with artistic and imaginative feats." (Buffalo Courier-Express)

A Review

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When in the first chapter of The Byzantium Stone a Greek in post-World War I Constantinople bargains away his birthright, we understand that this strange gem will provide the impetus of David Chacko's plot. The stone is not simply a beautiful gem, but one that exhibits extreme changeabilityor chatoyance. And that, too, becomes a major theme in a novel that has more changes of place and time than the reader can count.

The remarkable thing is that the flashbacks from the present to multiple locations and eras in the past do not become confusing or redundant. Chacko's story is a chameleon whose tail never breaks off in the reader's hand. We follow the plot from the island of Rhodes in 1522 to the nearby island of Kos in 1919 as if time is as fluid as the sea between those two patches of land in the Dodecanese. These events lead seamlessly to the journal of Count Adriano Sanguini as it advances the story to the present, where Samson Mondieu, the man who is hunting the Byzantium Stone, falls in love with the count's granddaughter.

A storyboard of grand proportions would be needed to track all these "changes"if that were necessary. It's not. Samson leapfrogs continents and centuries with skill and hardly a blink of the cosmic eye. He knows by the time he reaches Italy that the Byzantium Stone is not so much an object as an obsession that has escalated through every age in this millennium, since the fall of Constantinople in 1204. And he knows that his job is to deliver the obsessionwhich is now the key to the futureto an obscenely rich man who will employ the stone as a lever to everlasting fame. How Samson passes the baton to the man is the most satisfying part of this very satisfying book.

The Byzantium Stone is highly recommended to anyone with a sense of the possibilitiesor nostalgiafor the most exciting parts of the past.

The Byzantium Stone was published by Foremost Press. It can be ordered through local bookstores and at ForemostPress.com, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com.
ISBN 10: 1-936154-61-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-936154-61-6
306 pp, $15.97